by Kate Hewitt
‘It’s important to take time for yourself,’ the health visitor says, a bit sternly. ‘You need to make sure you’re eating and sleeping properly, although I know that’s hard with a little one.’ Right. As if any of that will help. ‘And don’t be ashamed to ask for help,’ she continues. ‘This is a trying time for anyone. Friends, parents, and also professionals. They’re there for you. If you’re still feeling out of sorts in another week, we can have another chat, think about what to do next.’
‘Next?’ I repeat flatly. What’s the next stage for a mother like me, a mother who’s failed?
‘Perhaps think about getting some professional help,’ the health visitor says. ‘Some treatment.’
I don’t want treatment. I don’t want to be a problem that has to be dealt with, a disappointment to everyone, most of all myself. I want to solve this, the way I solve everything. Of course I don’t say any of that to this woman, whose kindly smile feels like an affront. She pities me. I know she does.
‘Thanks,’ I say, my tone one of finality, my smile not reaching my eyes. ‘That’s good to know.’
* * *
When Anna comes by later, I am resting in bed. I hear her moving downstairs, her delighted coo to Alice. Then I hear Matt’s low voice, the creak of footsteps. When she peeks through my door, I pretend I am sleeping.
Later, I make myself go downstairs and face them all. Anna, Matt. Alice. The scene that greets me as I come into the sitting room is the perfect tableau of happy families, except it’s not my family. Anna and Jack are sitting on the sofa together, Alice lying on her back on Anna’s lap, Anna holding her tiny feet in her hands, as they both coo at her.
They look up as I come into the room, and I swear they both look guilty. For a second I feel dizzy, and I grab onto the door frame.
‘Where’s Matt?’
‘He just went out for some milk.’ Yes, definitely guilty. Anna scoops Alice into her arms, and Jack helps her to stand. ‘Do you want to hold her?’
Do I need her permission? ‘In a minute. I’ll get a coffee first.’
‘I’ll get it,’ Anna says quickly. ‘Here – hold her.’ She thrusts Alice towards me, and I stare at her levelly. What is going on here?
Anna tries to smile, but her lips tremble. Silently I take my daughter, and hold her awkwardly to me. I’m not as adept as Anna, or perhaps even Jack. I turn away from them, pressing Alice against me, and then she starts to cry.
Damn it. I can’t do this. I can never do this. Still, I am determined to try, for my sake, for Alice’s sake, and because Anna and Jack are both watching. I jiggle her, patting her back, whispering soft words. Nothing works. She keeps crying, and before I can keep myself from it, I let out a sob of frustration.
‘Maybe she’s hungry,’ Anna offers. ‘Do you want to give her a bottle?’
I think of my one attempt at feeding my daughter, and shake my head. ‘I think she needs a nappy change. I’ll see to it.’ Still clutching a crying Alice to me, I head upstairs, grateful to be away from an audience.
The nursery is as beautiful as I remember making it, except now it is clearly used. I haven’t been in here since I came home, and now I notice the stack of nappies by the changing table, the hamper of dirty baby gros and sleepsuits, reminders of everything I’ve already missed.
‘Come on then, sweetie.’ My voice sounds manic, a falsetto of fake cheer. I lie Alice down on the changing mat; she is still crying, her face red and furious, her tiny fists clenched. I fumble to unbutton her sleepsuit, my fingers feeling too clumsy for the tiny snaps.
Alice’s cries increase, shriller and shriller, making me feel even clumsier and more anxious.
‘Come on, Alice.’ I can do this. I need to do this.
I take off the nappy, which is completely dry. Anna must have just changed her, and for some reason this infuriates me. I start to put on a fresh nappy, but the tapes snag and then one tears off. With a growl of frustration, I toss it aside and reach for another one. Alice wees all over the changing mat.
In a different life, this would be funny and cute. I know that. I can almost picture it; how I’d laugh and tickle her tummy, how nothing would faze me. But I am not that person. I am not that mother, and right now this feels like the most important thing I need to succeed at, and I am not. I am failing.
With Alice screaming all the while, I manage to take off her wet baby gro and sleepsuit. It takes two more nappies before I manage to put one on correctly without tearing the tapes, and now I have the monumental effort of getting her dressed. Alice has stopped screaming, at least, but she almost seems worse, too traumatised to make a sound, her eyes glassy and blank.
When I fit the baby gro over her head, it snags, and she starts up again. Tears smart my eyes and I know I am too rough as I push her tiny arms through the sleeves of her sleepsuit. I didn’t think it was possible, but her screaming gets louder and even more shrill.
I am crying now too, unable to keep the tears from streaming down my face as I force her feet into the sleepsuit. I can’t do this. I can’t do anything. And it occurs to me, for the first time, that Alice might be better off without me.
‘Milly?’ Anna appears in the doorway, her voice both hesitant and alarmed. ‘Can I help?’
‘Take her.’ My voice is clogged and I turn away, wiping at my cheeks. Behind me, I hear Anna murmuring to Alice, and when I turn around, she is cuddling her, her cheek pressed against the top of her head, and Alice has stopped crying.
‘It will get better,’ Anna says, but she doesn’t sound convinced, and neither am I.
‘I’m going to have a nap,’ I say, even though I’ve just got up.
‘I’ve made you some coffee,’ Anna protests. ‘Why don’t you just spend a little time holding her, Milly? The nappy changes and bottle feeds are the tough bits. Just cuddle her…’ Matt must have told her about my disastrous attempts at feeding her. And the nappy changes and bottle feeds clearly aren’t difficult for her, for Matt, for anyone. Anyone but me.
‘You can do it,’ I say, and push past her.
Alone in my bedroom, I curl up on my side, my legs tucked up to my chest. I feel empty now, of tears, of resolve, of anything. Downstairs, I hear Alice singing ‘Hush Little Baby’, and a broken sob escapes me.
* * *
Over the next two weeks nothing gets better. I try, at least as much as I can; I manage to change Alice once, without her crying, and I give her half a bottle mostly successfully. These feel like huge milestones, but they’re not enough, and Anna watching me all the time makes everything worse.
Matt has gone back to work, and Anna is always here. When I changed Alice, she congratulated me, as if I’d scaled a mountain. I felt like a babysitter – a bad one that she has to chivvy along and bolster with fake praise.
And I can’t help but notice, at every turn, that it’s all so easy for Anna. She holds Alice in one arm as she pours cereal with the other, totally relaxed and confident. She asked if I wanted to bath Alice one morning, after she’d had a dirty nappy, and I watched in amazed fascination as she did it herself, holding a slippery, wet Alice with one hand as she scooped water with the other. Alice didn’t even cry.
It was utterly beyond me, and we both knew it. Everyone knew it – my parents, Matt, even Jack, who stopped by too often for my liking. Everyone was witness to my complete and utter failure as a mother, even if no one ever said as much. I saw it in their eyes, their faces, the pursed lips and sideways glances and telling silences. I saw it and I felt it.
‘How are you feeling, then?’ the health visitor asks when she comes for her weekly visit. Anna is in the kitchen, making dinner, Alice in the baby swing next to her. ‘It’s nice your friend is helping out,’ she adds kindly, and I wonder if she senses the disparity, how Anna is more of a mother than I am. Perhaps she is glad of it, because then at least she knows Alice is being taken care of.
‘Okay,’ I answer, because some stubborn part of me refuses to admit I can’t get past this. Or per
haps it’s just because I know I’m a failure, and admitting it won’t help. Instead I try, stupidly, pathetically, to hide it from everyone, including this woman.
‘The baby blues are fading a bit?’ she says with a smile, and I can’t believe I might be convincing her. She can’t tell that I am holding on by a fraying thread, if that. She can’t see the despair in my eyes, the feeling every morning that I, quite literally, cannot get up from bed, because my limbs are too heavy, as if I’ve been replaced by concrete. How can she not see? She’s a professional. But neither do I tell her.
‘Yes, they really are,’ I say. ‘It was a bit rough at first, but I think I’m getting the hang of it now.’ I almost want to laugh; what I’m saying is so absurd.
The health visitor nods, all sympathy. ‘The first few weeks are the hardest,’ she says, and I nod back, as if I agree with her, as if that’s all it is. When she leaves, I fight a sudden, desperate urge to claw her back, to tell her the truth. I’m falling apart and I hate myself. But I can’t, I can’t, and so I just wave instead.
‘I’m glad you’re feeling better,’ Anna says after she’s gone, making no attempt to pretend she didn’t eavesdrop on the entire conversation. ‘Do you want to take Alice out today, in the pram?’
I am annoyed by her suggestion, the way I’ve been annoyed by every other one, like I have to be managed, and yet I know I do.
‘That’s a good idea,’ I make myself say, because to refuse feels wrong, and at least I’ll be away from Anna. ‘I’ll take her out to the park.’
I shower and dress, and when I come downstairs, Anna has already bundled Alice into her snowsuit. She puts her in the pram as I get my coat, and I playact at being cheerful and insouciant. This is going to be fun.
Of course it isn’t. Alice starts crying almost the moment we leave, Anna standing at the door and waving me off. I grit my teeth and try to walk briskly, even though my incision still hurts and a walk is not actually a great idea for someone who had an emergency C-section a few weeks ago.
‘Come on, darling,’ I say, my voice cheerful and overloud. ‘It’s such a beautiful day today.’ Alice, of course, pays no mind. She continues to scream, looking too small in the pram; I should have wrapped her in a blanket, or put something under her head. She rolls around in the pram’s empty expanse like a marble in a jar. And she cries. Oh, how she cries.
I walk to the park as I once dreamed of doing, what feels like a lifetime ago. Alice cries all the while. Once I am there, I sit down on a bench, because I am tired and my incision hurts and I honestly feel I can’t go any further, in any respect.
Half-heartedly I rock the pram back and forth as Alice continues to scream, but then I stop doing even that. I wonder if I will ever move again, if Alice will ever stop screaming.
‘Miss, miss… are you all right?’ I blink an elderly man into focus; he is staring at me in concern. ‘Shouldn’t you be tending to your baby?’ I hear more than a hint of censure in his voice, and I don’t blame him. I’ve been sitting here for nearly half an hour, I realise, simply staring into space, as Alice howls.
Without answering him, I get up and start pushing her back home. I feel dazed and distant from myself; I barely hear her cries now, and I stare straight ahead, not taking anything in, like a mindless automaton.
Anna comes out the front door as soon as I’ve reached the drive. She looks panicked, and I realise how loud and awful Alice’s screaming truly is. When I look down, her face is bright red and she has been sick on herself.
Anna scoops her up as I simply stand there. ‘Oh, Alice, Alice…’ She glances at me, concern warring with judgement. I see it perfectly. ‘What happened?’
‘She wouldn’t stop crying.’
‘Milly…’
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘It’s going to be all right.’
It’s clear to me now, in a way it wasn’t before: I’m not good for Alice. I’m not the mother she needs. I go upstairs and stay there until Matt comes home. I hear his lowered voice and Anna’s too, their worried murmurs. When Matt comes upstairs, I pretend to be asleep.
But that night, when he is sleeping, I creep into Alice’s room. She is lying on her back, one arm flung out by her head, palm up. She looks completely at peace. Her breath comes in little snuffly snores. As I stare down at her, I feel it – that rush of love that I’ve been longing for, that warm, welcome flood of maternal feeling. I would do anything for her. I know I would.
Which is why, the next morning, I tell Matt I am leaving.
Twenty
Anna
I can’t help but laugh as I blow a raspberry on Alice’s tummy, and she gives me one of her gummy grins. She had just started smiling in the last few days; she will be five weeks tomorrow. Milly has been gone for nearly two weeks.
I was shocked when Matt told me, his face gaunt, his expression dazed, the morning after Milly’s disastrous walk to the park. ‘She went to her parents’,’ he said, his voice hollow. ‘They picked her up this morning. She said she can’t stay, it’s been too hard. She needs some space.’
I held Alice to me, trying to take it in. Milly had just gone? As concerned and worried as I felt, I couldn’t keep from feeling something else as well – a treacherous relief, even joy. I had Alice.
It was wrong of me to feel that, I know. I tried not to feel it, but it kept pushing through, like a seedling through the soil, determined to seek the light. I had Alice.
‘Perhaps that’s for the best, Matt,’ I said. ‘For a little while, at least. She can rest and recover…’
‘She needs to be with Alice.’ He sounded fierce.
‘And she will be,’ I assured him. ‘When she’s ready.’
I moved in to their house the next day, bringing Winnie with me, because it seemed easier for both Matt and me if I was on site. It was nothing more than a simple matter of efficiency, or so I told myself.
Alice slept in the Moses basket in my room; it made sense for Matt to get his sleep while he could, since he had to go to work. I didn’t mind getting up at night to settle her or give her a feed; I soon came to treasure those moments we shared, the two of us, cocooned by the soft night, where I could pretend this was how it really was, how it always would be.
Soon I fell into an easy routine built around Alice. A feed in the morning, and then while she slept I’d shower and dress, and then tidy up around the house. After she woke up, I’d feed her again, and then if the weather was good I’d take her for a walk, either in the pram or the sling that I took out of its packaging, with her nestled warmly against me. Then I would come home and potter around, feed and change Alice, read while she lay on my lap, or walk with her if she started to fuss. I’d make dinner for the three of us, and we’d eat together.
Sometimes Jack came by, and we’d play with her together, marvel at her lying on a mat on the floor, kicking her tiny legs. Although he never said anything, I don’t think I was the only one imagining this was all real.
Although I called Milly’s parents every day, and sent her photos of Alice by email, it was easy to let her drift to the back of my mind. There wasn’t anything I could do for her besides what I was already doing, and Alice was the one who needed me now. So during those long, languorous days, when it was just me and Alice, I gave myself permission not to think of Milly at all.
At the park one day, I sat on a bench, gently rocking the pram, enjoying the wintry sunshine. It was early December, and the Christmas decorations had come out, with lamp posts spangled with lights and wreaths.
‘Oh, how adorable!’ A mum with a baby in a sling came to stand near Alice, cooing down at her tiny, flower-like face. ‘How old?’
‘Four weeks, but she was a preemie. Her due date isn’t for over another week.’
‘Oh, wow.’ The mum looked at me in frank admiration. ‘You look amazing.’
‘Oh…’ The syllable slipped through my lips softly, like a sigh. And then I didn’t say anything else. In my defence, how could I? It was hardly the moment
to say I wasn’t the mother, that her actual mother had abandoned her, at least for the moment. Of course, later I realised I could have just said I was babysitting. But that didn’t occur to me at the time.
‘And she’s doing well? Feeding well?’
‘Yes, she is, actually. She’s doing amazingly, considering, well, everything.’ I smiled and rocked the pram.
‘She’s your first?’ I opened my mouth to say I knew not what, unable to perpetuate the fiction quite that much, but the woman steamrollered over me before I could respond. ‘Do you know any other mums in the area? Because there’s a mums and babies group that meets in the community centre on Thursday mornings, from ten to twelve. We have a coffee and a chat, while the babies feed or scream.’ She smiled, with a little eye roll. ‘You know how it is.’
‘Yes, I do…’ That much was true.
‘So you should come along. Meet some other mums. It can be lonely, can’t it?’
‘Yes…’ I was starting to feel out of my depth. I never should have gone along with being Alice’s mum. Then the woman leaned closer to look at her.
‘Wow, she’s the spitting image of you, isn’t she? Those dimples. Adorable. And the same eyes and chin.’
‘Thanks,’ I murmured. ‘And I’ll definitely think about the Thursday group.’
As soon as she’d left with a cheery wave, I peered into the pram. Did Alice really have my chin? Then I felt a curdling rush of guilt. What had I been thinking, having that conversation? Acting as if I were Alice’s mother, if just by silence?
I got up abruptly, pushing Alice out of the park as if a bunch of real mothers were chasing me, accusing me of being the fake I knew I was. Of course I couldn’t go to the group, not without explaining. And yet, as I pushed Alice along, I knew I wanted to.
But I didn’t go. I knew it would be a mistake. And what if Milly decided she would go one day, once she had come home? Because she would come home, I knew that. I had to keep reminding myself: this was a dreamtime, suspended and separate from reality. At some point it was going to end, and I was going to wake up.